So I'm messing around surfing the web today, like I usually do, every day and it hits me!

A great new format for a secure password: My car's VIN number!

Think of it: a vehicle VIN number is usually 17 characters. I did a check on it in my "Password Recovery Time Simulator" (you'll need to scroll down to the bottom of the page) http://www.alpinesnow.com, [PRTS] and it comes out as taking 10848035316494 years, 287 days to crack. That's pretty secure. Note: PRTS gives you an estimate of how long it would take to crack a password, assuming an "ordinary" Pentium running at 500Mhz. It also simulates a "Supercomputer" running 12 trillion calcularions per sec. Freeware, from the above website.

A VIN number doesn't change. Use it enough, you'll memorize it. When it comes time to change passwords, just change one or two characters. Simple.

Last edited by oyle on Tue Apr 17, 2007 7:43 pm, edited 1 time in total.

MCP, MCP+I, MCSA, MCSE(NT4/W2K), CCNA, CCA, NWCCC, VH-PIRTS, CEH --------------------"hackers are like jedi, crackers are like the sith: do not fall prey to the dark side".